Moore said her parents’ divorce made her want to create a family with Adams

Share this:

Ryan Adams plays live for the first night of his UK tour to promote his new album "Rock N Roll" at The Corn Exchange & Guildhall on January 17, 2004 in Cambridge. (Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images)

Actress and desginerr Mandy Moore poses at the preview of the Mblem. by Mandy Moore knit dress collection spring 2007 at Social Hollywood on September 27, 2006 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Mblem. by Mandy Moore)

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Ryan Adams plays live for the first night of his UK tour to promote his new album "Rock N Roll" at The Corn Exchange & Guildhall on January 17, 2004 in Cambridge. (Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images)

At age 23, Moore, a then-very-busy pop singer and actress, learned that her parents were ending their seemingly happy 30-year marriage because her mother had fallen in love with someone else, Moore revealed in an interview on Monday’s episode of Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast.

Moore said she was left feeling “out of control” and “shattered” by the divorce of her parents, Stacy and Donald Moore. The “This is Us” star agreed with Maron’s suggestion that this “trauma” made her vulnerable to the older rock star, who was “way out of control.”

Moore, 34, explained to Maron how she wanted to re-create a sense of family with Adams, whom she met in 2006. They were married from 2009 to 2016.

“You re-evaluate your entire life and everything,” Moore said. “So this was my way of steadying myself.”

Moore’s interview with Maron was taped before the publication of the Feb. 13 New York Times report in which seven women, including Moore, accused Adams, 44, of sexual misconduct or emotionally abusive behavior.

One of the accusers said she was 14 when Adams initiated an online correspondence with her in 2013 — while he was still married to Moore. The accuser, an aspiring young musician and fan, said the online chats included sexually explicit notes and a Skype video in which he allegedly exposed himself, according to the Times.

The FBI has since opened an investigation into Adams’ communications with the underage fan, the Times reported. Adams’ attorney has denied that Adams knew the fan was underaged at the time.

In her interview with the Times, Moore said Adams took charge of her career, at a time when she was trying to put her teen-pop-star persona far behind her and create a more “authentic” music career.

But Moore said her acclaimed, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter husband “discouraged” her from working with other producers and managers. After they wrote songs together, Moore said Adams would “replace her with other female artists” when it came time to record. She hasn’t recorded an album since 2009.

“His controlling behavior essentially did block my ability to make new connections in the industry during a very pivotal and potentially lucrative time — my entire mid-to-late 20s,” Moore told the Times.

Moore spoke in more emotional terms with Maron about her “co-dependent” relationship with Adams, who was known for his dysfunctional family background and struggles with addiction.

Moore said she met Adams when she was still reeling from learning over the previous Christmas holidays that her mother had fallen in love with another woman.

Moore told Maron there was “no judgement” in her family that her mother wanted to be with another woman. It was just destabilizing because her mother had suddenly, and to her own surprise, fallen in love with someone else.

“I didn’t know how to handle it,” Moore said, adding that her parents had been together since high school. Moore also said she had long taken pride in the fact that her parents had one of the few long marriages that she knew.

Moore recalled to Maron how she she met Adams while on tour in Minneapolis and joined him on his bus after a performance.

“Ryan was on his laptop, and he had these glasses on and his crazy hair and flannel shirt, and he shows us some ridiculous movie, called ‘Pizza Ninja,’ that he made with his bandmates on his digital camera,” Moore told Maron. “I’m telling you, I just (thought) this guy is the most bizarre person, but his mind … I’ve never met anyone like him, and as a 23-year-old impressionable young woman I was really taken by him.”

“I had never met someone who had that lens on the world,” Moore continued. “It blew my mind. He was so unabashedly himself, I guess.”

But after they started dating a few months later, and then became a couple, that admiration turned into something that left her feeling miserable and used.

“I was living my life for him” Moore told Maron, “and being the mother.”

“It’s an entirely unhealthy dynamic,” Moore continued. “I had no sense of self. I was imperceptible. I was so small in my own world.”

Moore further explained how her career took a back seat to Adams’, saying the marriage couldn’t “sustain itself” if she’d worked full time.

“I would do little jobs — it’s not like I completely stopped working,” Moore said. “But it would become abundantly clear while I was working, things would completely fall apart at home. I couldn’t do my job because there was a constant stream of trying to pay attention to this person who needed me and wouldn’t let me do anything else.”

Moore again said her desire to serve Adams’ needs went back to her own family breakdown and to her belief she somehow was “undeserving,” also because of the success she enjoyed in music and film and TV at a young age.

“There was part of me … I’m OK not to live for myself right now,” Moore said. “He needs me, and I know how to do that. This person who is estranged from his family: I can show what it’s like to have a normal life and to celebrate birthdays and holidays and go on vacation.”

But as Moore has acknowledged to Maron and to the Times, she and Adams didn’t have anything like a normal life.

The Times report shows that Adams, while married to Moore, pursued musical collaborations and sex with other female musicians. As with Moore, the prolific alt/rock/folk musician promised to play the role of patron — he would champion the women’s careers and help them produce albums.

Moore told Maron she plans to return to her music career. She hopes it will include collaborations with her new husband, singer Taylor Goldsmith, whom she married in November.

Moore added that her relationship with her parents improved some time ago. After the divorce, her father met and married her future stepmother, while her mother is still with her partner, living in Sedona, Arizona.

“They were all at my wedding,” Moore said. “My stepmom and my mom were on the dance floor together. … (My parents) are with who they are meant to be with.”

Martha Ross is a features writer who covers everything and anything related to popular culture, society, health, women’s issues and families. A native of the East Bay and a graduate of Northwestern University and Mills College, she’s also a former hard-news and investigative reporter, covering crime and local politics.